Use of Solar and Wind Power

The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy has taken several measures to spread awareness about the use of renewable energy system including solar energy systems and power plants and wind power projects. . This was stated by Sh. Piyush Goyal, Minister of state for Power, Coal & New and Renewable Energy (Independent Charge) in a written reply to a question in the Lok Sabha today. These include publication of booklets on solar energy and wind energy, articles in magazine on renewable energy including special issues on solar energy and wind energy, organization of awareness and capacity building programme through state nodal agencies, regional rural banks and manufacturers/suppliers of solar systems etc. 

The Minister further stated that the Ministry is providing financial and fiscal incentives for the installation of off-grid and grid connected solar power plants. These include preferential tariffs/generation based incentives, accelerated depreciation, concessional/nil excise and customs duties etc. Under the Off-grid and Decentralized Solar Applications Scheme of Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission, the Ministry provides capital subsidy of 30% of project cost in the general category states and 90% of the project cost in special category States to the Central and State Government Ministries and their organizations for installation of off-grid SPV power projects having module capacity up to 500 kWp limited to certain benchmark costs of the project. 

The Minister further stated that the Government is promoting wind power projects through private sector investment by providing fiscal and promotional incentives such as concessional import duty on certain components of wind electric generators, excise duty exemption to manufacturers. 10 years tax holiday on income generated from wind power projects is also available. Loans for installing windmills are available from Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) and other Financial Institutions. Technical support including wind resource assessment is provided by the Centre for Wind Energy Technology (C-WET), Chennai. This apart, preferential tariff is being provided in potential states. The Ministry has announced a Generation Based Incentive (GBI) under which Rs. 0.50/unit generated from wind power projects is provided to the projects with a ceiling of Rs. 1.00 crore per MW, the Minister added. 

Courtesy: pib.nic.in